ISIS claims responsibility for fatal knife attack at German festival; suspect arrested after manhunt

ISIS, a militant Islamist group, claimed responsibility on Saturday for a knife attack at a festival in Solingen, Germany, that killed three people and wounded eight others at a crowded festival marking the city's 650th anniversary.

The group said the attacker targeted Christians and is a "soldier of the Islamic State" who carried out the Friday night attack "to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere."

The ISIS claim couldn't immediately be verified. No evidence for the group's assertions was provided.

Police later detained a suspect, the state internal affairs minister of North Rhine-Westphalia said early Sunday.

"We have been following a hot lead all day," Herbert Reul told Tagesschau, the news program of the German public television network ARD. "The person we have been searching for all day has been detained a short while ago."

He was being questioned, Reul said.

Reul said that police not only have "clues" but also have collected "pieces of evidence."

Officials earlier said a 15-year-old boy was arrested early Saturday. Police said he was suspected of knowing about the planned attack and failing to inform authorities but was not the attacker.

Markus Caspers, from the counterterrorism section of the public prosecutors office, told a news conference earlier Saturday that authorities have not found the perpetrator.

"So far we have not been able to identify a motive, but looking at the overall circumstances, we cannot rule out" the possibility of terrorism, Caspers said, although he did not offer further details.

The three people who died were two men, aged 67 and 56, and a 56-year-old woman, authorities said. Police said the attacker appeared to have deliberately aimed for his victims' throats.

Thorsten Fleiss from the German police, who was the chief of operations on Friday night, said police are conducting various searches and investigations in the entire state of North Rhine-Westphalia that will continue throughout the day.

He said it is a "big challenge" to bring together evidence and testimony from witnesses in order to come up with an overall picture.

Fleiss also said that police have found several knives, but he was unable to confirm whether any of them were used as a weapon by the perpetrator during the attack.

Police warned people to stay vigilant, even as well-wishers started to leave flowers at the scene. Authorities established an online portal where witnesses could upload footage and any other information relevant to the attack.

Churches in Solingen have opened their doors to offer a space for prayer and emergency pastoral care.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who paid a visit to Solingen on Saturday evening, said the government would do everything possible to support the city and its people.

"We will not allow such an awful attack to divide our society," she said, appearing alongside the state of North Rhine-Westphalia's leader, Hendrik Wust, and Reul.

Wust described the attack as "an act of terror against the security and freedom of this country." But Faeser, the country's top security official, hasn't classified it as a "terror attack."

Reul announced that the planned visit of the interior minister to the crime scene wouldn't take place because of the ongoing police operation in the affected areas of the city.

He pleaded with the public to "give time to the police" so that they can do their work. He also said that the police presence would be increased at larger events, especially because the perpetrator hasn't been caught yet.

Festival of Diversity

People alerted police shortly after 9:30 p.m. on Friday that an attacker with a knife had wounded several people at a central square, the Fronhof.

"Last night our hearts were torn apart," the mayor of Solingen, Tim Kurzbach, told reporters on Saturday near the scene of the attack. "What happened yesterday in our city has hardly let any of us sleep."

The Festival of Diversity, marking the city's 650th anniversary, began Friday and was supposed to run through Sunday, with several stages in central streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics.

The attack took place in the crowd in front of one stage. Hours after the attack, the stage lights were still on as police and forensic investigators looked for clues in the cordoned-off square. The rest of the festival was cancelled.

Solingen has about 160,000 residents and is located near the bigger cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that the perpetrator must be caught quickly and punished with the full force of the law.

"The attack in Solingen is a terrible event that has shocked me greatly.... We mourn the victims and stand by their families," Scholz said on X, formerly Twitter.

Scholz and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier both said they spoke with Kurzbach, the mayor of Solingen, on Saturday morning.

There has been concern about increased knife violence in Germany, and Faeser, the interior minister, recently proposed toughening weapons laws to allow only knives with a blade measuring up to six centimetres to be carried in public, rather than the current 12 centimetres.

A decade after ISIS declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria, the extremists no longer control any land, have lost many prominent leaders and are mostly out of the world news headlines.

Still, the group continues to recruit members and claim responsibility for deadly attacks around the world, including lethal operations in Iran and Russia earlier this year that left scores dead.

Its sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq still carry out attacks against government forces in both countries, as well as U.S.-backed Syrian fighters.